Pearl & Kevin Are Expecting. San Francisco

Back in August I received an email from Pearl sharing the good news. They bought a home...and were expecting a baby girl in September! I was very honored when they asked if I would photograph a maternity session. "Of course!" I said.

Just over a week ago we got together in the Presidio and also ventured to Crissy Field. They looked great and we have a great time powering through despite the chill and breeze. Pearl and Kevin were happy and laughing throughout. Afterwards, we caught up over coffee and hot chocolate. So much has happened since their wedding two years ago. How exciting :)

UPDATE: Guess, what, they just had their baby yesterday morning. We got in just under the wire. Cheers to you mom and dad!

Iridescence Bridal by Judy Lee. Clos La Chance Winery. San Martin

Last year at Preston Castle Judy generously provided the wardrobe for our models. She is the talented creative force behind made-to-order dress boutique Iridescence Bridal. Over the last year, Judy has been quietly working on a new line of dresses aimed at the bridal market. When she asked me to help launch the brand I said yes of course!

In mid June, Chyna Darner and I got together with Monica Kau of Signature Bloom, Tiffany Chiang of Design Her Image, Sophie Lai of Simply Perfect, and Van Hsieh of Ocean Blue Video to photograph Judy's upcoming collection. Clos La Chance winery graciously offered their property to us for the shoot. We spent the day working on images for Judy's catalog, website, and marketing materials Thanks to our models - Seema, Sarah, and Kenny.

Here are a few moments I caught as we worked.

Joanne & Alan's Wedding. Burlingame

Wedding and reception at Wedgewood at Crystal Springs Golf Club in Burlingame.

I'm very grateful that past clients like Michelle and Bob who refer me to friends and family! Joanne and I met a few years ago when Michelle, her sister, was married - who incidentally now has a very cute baby girl nicknamed "Fancy" pictured below. When she gave me a call I was of course interested in photographing her wedding. It was nice seeing some familiar faces in the crowd again :D

Pulling a few strings got Joanne and Alan some private portrait time before the ceremony at the Pulgas Water Temple in Woodside. Its a wonderfully peaceful location that is secluded and well maintained. Perfect for more romantic imagery. Tip: plan your visit wisely because this place is only open until 4:30pm Monday though Saturday. They perform weddings there so weekends might not be the best time to go. Sundays, are off limits for that entire stretch of Canada Road.

Joanne and Alan hosted a wonderful event at Crystal Springs while keeping things low key. The bride arrived in a '55 Chevy with a large bouquet of incredible pink Peonies. Fog rolled in as the short and sweet ceremony ended. The gazebo area proved to be too breezy and cold for family formals so we grabbed a few frames of just the couple before they drove to Crystal Springs in their nicely restored Chevy Apache pickup (it possesses a most desirable growl).

During the toasts we were treated to a walk down memory lane by Alan's sister complete with large photographs. Check out a few of the shots below - hilarious!!! Alan and Joanne are currently on their honeymoon in Hawaii. Aloha!

Floral Arrangements: Rosedale Floral Design
Cake: Satura Cakes
Music: Shawn Storm

Diana's & Alex's Cake Story in the San Jose Mercury News!

During a conversation last year Diana and Alex mentioned that Diana was going to bake her own wedding cake a few days before the event. This was a big deal for me - it's a pretty major component of their wedding tale. How could someone NOT capture this? I made sure I was there and if you follow this blog you may have seen some images when their wedding was posted. It was a beautiful multi-tiered cake.

Fast forward to Spring 2010 when Diana tells me the Bay Area newspapers (Bay Area News Group) are calling for DIY wedding cake stories. She submitted hers and the story ran yesterday, May 5th, in the Food and Wine section of the San Jose Mercury News, Oakland Tribune, Contra Costa Times, etc. Congratulations Diana and Alex and thank you for making me a part of this!

Check out the article for some terrific advice and a dash of humor. Here's a couple images that ran with the story as well as a picture of the final product.

Breathing Life Into the Soul of a New Machine

My Intel 3.0 GHz Pentium4 with Microsoft XP Pro served me well these last 3 years but lately I've been experiencing some warning signs that a hard drive is about to die. Last month I set out to spec. and build my next image editing workstation designed to withstand another 3 years of wedding work. Here are the components I've chosen (pictured above):

. Intel Core i7 860 quad core processor
. ASUS P7P55D Deluxe motherboard
. 8GB OCZ DDR3 Dual Channel RAM
. 64-bit Windows 7 Pro OS
. Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 5750 1GB VaporX graphics card
. six Western Digital Black 1TB hard drives (configured as a RAID 10)
. one Western Digital Blue 500GB hard drive
. Samsung Super WriteMaster 24x SATA Litescribe CD/DVD drive
. Thermaltake BlacX hard drive docking station
. Antec 900 enclosure
. Antec TruePower 650W power supply

>>> Total cost: $1900 (approx.)

The i7-860 processor is midrange these days and more than adequate for imaging work. Selecting a matching motherboard was easy but with the caveat that you must be sure the dual-channel RAM you buy is on the compatibility list. The GPU is again midrange and I went with the ATI because, according to my limited research, it supports a different LUT for each output. This allows me to run 2 monitors and calibrate them independently. The Sapphire VaporX version was chosen because it has also shown some superior cooling abilities which is a big plus. With everything being SATA getting the right power supply and enclosure with 8 drive bays was required, thus the Antec solution. Bonus, there are plenty of cooling fans in the enclosure.

Larger hard drives storing more data means a failure could wipe out a couple years of work. I went with a RAID to reduce the frequency of required backups. Intel's Matrix Storage is configured as 2 volumes (small and large) spanning 2 and 4 drives respectively. Since storage is so cheap, using a RAID 1 and RAID 10 is sensible and easier to maintain and rebuild in case of a drive failure.

After 2 days of moderate but sporadic effort, the system is ready and stable. One lesson learned, the Intel Matrix Storage Manager 8.9 is buggy and would periodically declare a drive failure in the RAID array when there was none. Upgrading to the Intel Rapid Storage Technology application solved that problem (free download). I'm also thankful that my Monaco Optix XR color calibration system continues to work on Windows 7. The DTP-94 (colorimeter aka puck), though not explicitly supported, works with the help of a Windows Vista 64-bit driver. No BSD experienced after installing the driver.

Lightroom 2 and Adobe CS4 are installed and the BlacX docking station helped migrate all my image files over. A test run rendering 700+ 1:1 full resolution images in Lightroom completed in well under an hour which was easily an overnight task on my old workstation. I'm happy :D

Hello wedding season, I am ready for you!